


Where the Deep Places Are

by picklebridge



Category: Merlin (TV), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picklebridge/pseuds/picklebridge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin's life is in shambles, Gaius keeps laughing at him, the human race is on the brink of destruction and recently people have started expecting him to do something about their Kaiju pest problem. He's pretty sure he's hit rock bottom, before he meets Arthur Pendragon. Then he becomes certain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Deep Places Are

**Author's Note:**

> I got too involved when I re-watched Pacific Rim and then this happened. I'll try to keep updates fairly regular, but I'm not going to promise anything because I'll probably be lying to you.
> 
> I'll post progress updates and some bits and pieces over on tumblr, under picklebridge, so head on over there if you're interested!

Merlin crouched in the shadow of High Priestess, looking critically at a bunch of loose cables that had been eaten away by Kaiju acid. Overhead other members of the maintenance team were welding back the plates that made the jaeger more than just a ragged skeleton of neuro-connectors and brute force. 

“It’s no good, we’re going to have to replace all of these,” he called over to the work bench, shielding his face from some stray sparks. “Hey, watch it!”

Whoever the perpetrator was called down an apology and turned away, their face obscured by the heavy mask they wore to protect their eyes from the blast of the flames. Merlin beat a hasty retreat, surveying the jaeger from a complete distance instead. Her swords were completely shorn and one of the elbow canons was shot, but all in all she was in remarkably good shape. People called her graceful, but Merlin wasn’t sure that was quite the word he’d use for a 280 feet tall monster robot, no matter how beautiful anyone who worked on one came to think they were. He’d call her _pilots_ graceful, because Morgana and Morgause practically oozed class and control, but if he had to think of a name for ‘his jaeger’ as such, it would probably be wicked. High Priestess was all hard lines and glittering plate steel, her purple paint catching the eye and holding it while the silver visor judged you ominously. 

“She’s looking pretty good, isn’t she?” Cenred asked delightedly, glancing up from the repairs list he was jotting down to give Merlin a smile. He was High Priestess’ main mechanic, and Merlin could acknowledge that sure, he was good at his job, but his _arrogance_ was overwhelming sometimes. Merlin had spent about a month designing some new blasters perfectly calibrated to Morgana’s magical signature, but had he seen any of the credit? Of course not.

“Hmm,” Merlin agreed noncommittally, leaning back against the work top and breathing in the smell of ozone and motor oil. It was more than enough to make him miss it, looking up at High Priestess in the yellow lights of their terminal bay. There was nothing that quite compared to the feeling of being inside a jaeger, the way limbs melted into metal and the power of the Drift slammed into your brain like a concentrated shot of adrenaline. Yeah, Merlin wouldn’t mind being back inside a jaeger. The problem was, he was only half a team and Ealdor Stampede lay in pieces on the floor of the Pacific. He didn’t think it could ever feel the same in a different conn-pod, not without Ealdor and not without Will. While Cenred went off to yell at some people about some missing bolts or something (you learned to block him out), Merlin got back to work. High Priestess needed some fine tuning before they sent her back into service. He wanted to try and cushion her reactors a little better in particular, because if Morgana was to be believed the Kaiju were adapting with every new one coming through the Breach. It was a terrifying thought. 

Slowly the others filtered out to grab the best food from the mess hall, leaving Merlin alone with the jaeger. Finally feeling at some sort of peace he winched himself up so that he was by the chest plates of her hulking form and messed around with more of the wiring. It was his favourite bit of the whole building process because it was intricate and detailed, and it felt the closest to magic, really. With a few bits of wire, some solder and a couple of circuit boards he could make High Priestess do anything he wanted. He could bring her to life. There was something calming about it too, methodical. It wasn’t like welding where your brain was allowed to wander. Wiring took all of your concentration and held it, which Merlin appreciated because it took your mind off the long dead.

The Kaiju High Priestess had taken on last night was being called Wilderin by most of the command. Merlin was more set on calling it a massive pest. He eyed the tangled mess of ripped wire and raw metal that now sat in the open wound of the Jaeger’s shoulder. It was probably going to take him a week to get it all back into prime condition, if he cut back on sleep and used his, uh… _talents_ to get them all the right equipment. The problem was that usually they didn’t even have a week. The Kaiju were coming through the Breach faster and faster with every attack. If he was lucky he’d probably have five days, which meant even _less_ sleep and –

Were those alarms? Merlin swung in his harness, one hand firmly holding onto the plates of High Priestess’ front to steady himself. There couldn’t possibly have been another one through the Breach…could there? It was too soon! But the tell-tale warning screech said otherwise, the big sirens mounted around the holding bay slanting angry red light across Merlin’s face. There was a funny knot of nervous energy pulsing in his gut and his fingers trembled at the knots on his winch. His mouth was dry. What if they’d lost another jaeger? They couldn’t afford that – they couldn’t afford anything anymore. The knots weren’t coming undone. Swearing frantically Merlin quickly gave up and felt a little flash of calm as his eyes blossomed gold and the ropes loosened at last. 

His feet had barely touched the ground when over the wailing came the pounding of heavy boots, followed by Nimue skidding across the metal grills. Her dark hair was half out of its usual ponytail and she was soaking wet. Merlin stared at her. Nimue was a person who generally prided herself on looking as immaculate and as terrifying as she possibly could at all times. She had a glare that could melt steel and her magical talent with lightning wasn’t something that many people forgot in a hurry. To see her looking so unkempt was…well, worrying, actually.

“Emrys! Thank God I’ve found you.”

That was even more worrying. Merlin liked to personally ensure that nobody around here went looking for him. Ever. 

“Is…is that blood?” He tried tentatively, his eyes fixed on the too dark patch spreading across one side of Nimue’s shirt. He knew very well that it was blood – the air around her was filled with the familiar rusty smell of it, mixing in with the salty tang of the sea. The real question he was asking was ‘whose’.

Nimue glanced down. “Oh. Yes. There was a bit of a…um, rushed deployment. It didn’t go too well.”

That was an understatement. The sirens cut off abruptly and in the void they left Merlin was beginning to hear a distant wall of chaotic noise. Nimue glanced towards the door, a distinctly frazzled expression stealing into her blue eyes. 

“Was it dead people bad?” Merlin asked after a moment’s pause, worrying at his scarf anxiously. While it wasn’t strictly in line with the dress code the red material was soothing under his fingertips.

“No. Or at least we don’t think so. One of the pilots was pretty badly injured, but it’s hoped that they’ll pull through.”

Merlin ran through a list of all the active jaegers in his head, trying to figure out who it could possibly be. He’d gotten about as far as listing the other robots when Nimue’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. He fought the immediate urge to recoil and grimaced at her.

“Anyway! While that’s relevant that’s not actually why I came looking for you,” she said, her grip like steel as one hand unclipped him from the ropes and the other started towing him across the floor as though he were little more than a sack of potatoes. “We need you.”

That was enough to set off his own personal alarm bells, which had been on high alert for the entire conversation. _We_ . Which could only mean that Marshall Kilgharrah was involved. In Merlin’s book that _never_ meant good news. 

“Are you sure you need _me_ , specifically?” He asked hopefully, all the while tugging to get his arm loose. Nimue’s grip tightened until it was painful.

“You’re the most highly ranked sorcerer the world has ever seen, and while Cenred didn’t like admitting it he eventually praised you as the best mechanic on his team. Yes, we need you.” 

While they were waiting for the pressurised doors to open Nimue fixed him with such a stare that Merlin was quite forcefully reminded that back when they were in the academy she had reduced half the candidates to tears and broken bones in all the rest. His ribs ached painfully with traumatised remembrance.

“Also, Gaius specifically recommended you, which is good enough for me.”

Merlin scowled. Gaius would. He was forever telling Merlin that healing wouldn’t happen if he sulked the rest of his life away with a pile of metal. Which was a bit rich coming from him, because all Gaius ever did was surround himself with dead bits of Kaiju (Merlin could have sworn that he’d walked in on him talking to it once, so really, if anyone needed healing around here it certainly wasn't him). Still, he could see that he was fighting a losing battle and nodded with a sigh.

Nimue smirked. “Well, you know when you’re beaten. That’s a start.”

Before Merlin could get in a good retort to that, the doors finally creaked open and the background rumble of the Shatterdome’s panic turned into a roar. Several feet and three walkways down people ran to and fro trolleys like ants, pushing, shoving and yelling each other into a highly dysfunctional mess. And inbetween groups of them, yet more people directed hunks of metal to the floor of the bay. Merlin followed the trail with bated breath, his eyebrows raising as every piece got larger and larger until –

“Oh my God.”

Nimue grimaced. “I know it’s a tall order, but we need you to get her looking pretty again.”

In front of Merlin was…well. It _looked_ like it had been a jaeger, once. But with the state it was in he felt it hardly deserved the title. A sculptured junk yard, maybe. It was hard to believe anyone had come out of it alive. 

“How long have I got?” He asked automatically, his brain numb as he processed the broken plasma cannons, the missing right arm, the conn-pod ripped open like an eggshell picked clean. And those were only the bits that stood out. The only jaeger he had ever seen worse than this one was Ealdor, and she hadn’t made it home.

“We think with a bit of shuffling we can spare you a month. But after that I’m afraid we need Excalibur back on duty.”

Merlin nervously eyed the way Excalibur listed heavily to the left, as if she too was in shock at her gruesome fate. In truth he felt quite shaken by the precision of the damage – usually Kaiju used their weight to bash and flatten, not maim. Morgana would be pleased anyway; it proved her point. Each blow correlated with a key point on the jaeger, designed to render it useless as quickly as possible. The proof that Kaiju actually had some kind of intelligence made Merlin feel about as well as you might after drinking acid.

Slowly, he swallowed hard and licked his lips. Down below someone yelled out as a piece of Excalibur’s severed arm disintegrated and landed less than a meter away. “One month?”

“I know it’s not much and we’ll give you as much help as we can get,” Nimue said, as close as she ever got to apologetic.

Merlin sighed. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”

“None whatsoever.”

Merlin wished she wouldn't sound so happy about it.


End file.
